This video is of a pretty spectacular Christmas light display put on by the Sallaway family of Childs St, Rochedale. According to the info on the video, that's Sinead O'Connor singing:

The display is fully computer controlled and synchronized to music. We have over 70,000 lights, on almost 300 individually controllable channels. All the music synchronization is done by hand, and it takes about 10 hours per minute of music -- so this song took about 20 hours to do!

The music is played on speakers for viewers, but also broadcast over low-power FM (on 91.7 FM) so people can tune their car radios to it.

This year, we have decided to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation, who work wonders for sick children. If you'd like to make a donation, visit http://www.workingwonders.com.au/ -- or if you come to see the show in person and have enjoyed the lights, pop any spare change you have in our collection tin! :-)

Merv1! had a wide, short piece called "Charles Whitman" that was full of intricate designs that looked like they took ages and ages to get right. This piece is on the top floor, in the room near the back door.

Yesterday, Saturday December 13th saw rallies across the country to protest against the Government's plans to censor the Internet. This article is going to gather all the online photos, reports and videos I can find about the Brisbane rally, which happened in Brisbane Square, the large open space in between the new city council building and the Treasury Casino, just across George St from the end of the Queen St Mall. The video above is by Brisbane blogger Natalie Perkins, and just below is the story that ran on the local ABC TV news last night:

That's all I've found for now, but I'm sure there will be more photos, articles, videos and such in the next few days. So if you know of something that should be here and isn't, just leave a comment and I'll get on to it.

Just a quick reminder: The rally against the Government's plans to censor the Internet is on at 11am TOMORROW, Saturday December 13th, at Brisbane Square (the open space across George St from the end of the Queen St Mall, outside the new city council building where the great big metal balls are - click here for a Google Map)

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Creative Commons is a way for you to let other people use your work - it's an alternative to copyright. You can decide to let other people use your work in any way they want as long as they tell people that you did it, or you can let people only use your work for non-commercial purposes, or you can let people republish your work as long as they don't change it.

Creative Commons is helping an explosion of creativity happen. Their Christmas party starts at 6.30pm on Tuesday December 16th at Lock N Load, 142 Boundary St, West End (Click here for a Google Map).

Boymongoose is an Indian living in Brisbane who creates new versions of Christmas carols and releases them with great video clips. Two years ago he and his band released 12 Days of Christmas, which now has over three million views on YouTube. And a month ago boymongoose released this year's Christmas hit, "Single Girls", based on Jingle Bells:

Monday, 8 December 2008

Music blog That Striped Sunlight Sound republishes some great music. At the moment, TSSS is letting you download 4ZzZ-FM's "Eternally Yours", a series that was broadcast ten years ago. The series plays some of the great Brisbane bands from 1975 - 1995.

TSSS has pubished 4 editions so far, but keep an eye on the blog as there will be more.

Jugglers Art Space, at 103 Brunswick St in Fortitude Valley, is putting on its end-of-year show, the X-Show, this week. It starts on Friday December 12th at 6pm.

Jugglers Art Space concentrates on emerging and mid-career artists, and the gallery is set up to concentrate on creativity rather than commercial artwork. The show will have work from about 30 artists. It's on the bit of Brunswick St that is to the north-west of the Valley Fiveways - between the main part of the Valley and the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in Herston. Click here for a Google Map.

Sunday, 7 December 2008

This photo is really weird. I mean it's a fairly mundane scene, but at first glance it looks like a photo of a model train set or something like that. I had to have a close look to be convinced that it was a photo of a real scene (and I pass through this part of town a lot).

Saturday, 6 December 2008

"If you were 3 or 4 or 5 and someone told you this guy was going to sneak into your house at night, would you have nightmares forever?

This inflatible Santa takes up one entire display window in Myers in the city [in the Myer Centre in the Queen St Mall - Ed], making it about 7ft high by 10 ft wide (or bigger).And much, much scarier in real life...."

Friday, 5 December 2008

Reverse Garbage is an organisation in West End that collects the things industry throws away and sells them to the public - often so people can make interesting artwork out of them.

Reverse Garbage have a Renaissance Exhibition going on right now, until December 19th. The exhibition is of artwork that is made from at least 70% salvaged materials. Some of the exhibitors are the people behind Jellygnite, Ruby2GoGo and Beckybean.

The exhibition is open from 9 to 5, Monday to Saturday. Reverse Garbage is at 296 Montague Rd, West End, right near the corner of Vulture St. Click here for a Google Map.

Well, I went to Pecha Kucha Brisbane volume 8 last night and it was a very inspiring time. I got to meet some people from Twitter that I've only ever met online before *waves* and got to make videos of most of speakers.

Unfortunately, I ran out of videophone memory before I got to Randall Breen of Jugglers Art Space, because he gave what was my favourite presentation of the night. Jugglers Art Space is an artist-run gallery that concentrates on emerging artists and doesn't have a commercial focus. This means they are able to concentrate on creativity instead of having to constantly think about what's going to sell.

But I did manage to make videos of 8 of the speakers. I've got two of them here. First up is Robert Riddel of RA Riddel Architecture whose speech was all about how we are going to fit half a million extra people into the Brisbane inner city area, but the phone ran out of memory with about a minute to go :(

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

I'm going to head on down to the Powerhouse at New Farm Park this evening at 8.20 to catch Pecha Kucha Brisbane. Pecha Kucha "is an event where any designer, artist, architect, interactive media or alike, are given the soapbox to present their designs, thoughts and ideas." They get to speak, and while they speak show 20 slides for 20 seconds each - so each speech is 6 minutes 40 seconds. Which suits my attention span just fine.

Sunday, 30 November 2008

On December 13th 2008, there will be rallies in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth to protest against the Government's plans to censor the Internet in Australia. This video has all the details and also some advice about what to say when you're talking to people who are worried about what kids might see online. Please spread this video and news about the rally far and wide.

I am 21 and have had a few years training in dance, and a lot of training and experience in singing. I really would love to get a few girls together (Ages 18-25, but if you are outside this age range and still interested please dont hesitate), who would eventually become firm friends, to start with covers of pop music, and maybe a bit of dance numbers to Asian pop, which I am a huge fan of.

The financial crisis that has overwhelmed banks, stock markets and governments around the world seemed, to many, to come out of nowhere. But it has its roots in policies and financial innovations going back several decades, to the breakdown of the previous global financial system amid the inflation and mass unemployment of the 1970s. The current crisis is likely to have equally profound implications for individuals, families and business and for the way in which the economy will be managed in the future. It is too early to tell for sure what these implications will be, but John Quiggin will have a go anyway.

The 2high festival is a massive, free festival of art, music and performance THIS WEEKEND at the Powerhouse, New Farm (see below for a Google Map). 2high is about showing off the work of young and new artists in SE Queensland. Just click on the program above to have a look at the 2high website and find out more.

The round placemark on the map is the entrance to the Gallery of Modern Art. Go in the main door, and walk towards a stall in the middle where they sell tickets. Look to the left and you'll see a small foyer which is the entrance to the cinemas. The bus symbol on the map shows you where the Cultural Centre busway station is - just walk north from there to get to the Gallery.

If you're interested you should click here and leave a comment so they know how many people are coming. The Jubilee Hotel is about five minutes walk from the Fortitude Valley/Brunswick St train station, or you can catch a 301 bus from the Cultural Centre, or Adelaide St, and get off at the bus stop on the corner of Constance St and St Pauls Terrace, about twenty seconds' walk from the Jubilee. You can also catch the 320 from Stop 142, Edward St in the city, outside the Macarthur Central shopping centre, right near the corner of Elizabeth St - get off at the same place.

Monday, 13 October 2008

I went to the opening of Greenfest 2008 last Friday, and after slaving over a hot computer all weekend, I finally have the speeches ready for you. The speakers were introduced by John Schulter of Channel 7. The order of the videos is:

The notes on Cattapan's art by exhibition curator Simon Wright talk about how Cattapan has been coming to Brisbane for the last twenty years, which means he has seen Brisbane change from a backward-looking, inwards-looking provincial city into an "Australian metropolis". Wright says that this sort of change is an important part of Cattapan's work.

Another important thing about Cattapan's work is that it is not very clear exactly what stories (if any) he is trying to tell. There are human figures in his work, but they it's often hard to make out exactly what they are doing. This means that when you look at his work, you have to make up your own mind about what's going on.

It's a small exhibition: just four walls of the smallish Dell Gallery. On one wall is the huge "Valley Nights" work. As you can see from the video, it's all about Fortitude Valley. The Story Bridge dominates the centre of the painting, streching over a river. But very little else is clear. There are small-ish sketches of the McWhirters building and the gasomter at Newstead, but apart from that the "Valley Nights" is not true to physical reality. You can't move from one landmark to another as if it was a map, and the streets aren't laid out like they really are in Brisbane. I guess this is another part of asking you to work out your own story when you look at it.

Most of "Valley Nights" is dominated by blue night with long rows of street lights, or red, green, orange and yellow light, like the bright colours of street lamps and traffic lights. There are a couple of sketches of people gathered together doing stuff, but it's not very clear exactly what.

"Valley Nights" is something you should go and sit in front of for at least ten or twenty minutes - just soak it up.

When you've finished looking at "Valley Nights", turn to your right and you'll see twenty works that make up the "In Valley" series. Once again these are pictures of groups of people, but it's really not clear what they are doing. Some of them might be getting hassled by the cops, and some of them look like they could be having car trouble. The people are drawn in blue pencil, and there are splotches and dashes of bright orange paint over these paintings as well.

Behind you (as you look at "Valley Nights" are dozens of smaller artworks making up "The City Submerged #23: the lie of the valley". Some of these are reworked photographs, many are brightly-coloured ovals. And to your left are five untitled works making up "Valley Study 1-5", which look like photographs that have been silk-screened with oil and acrylic paint. As with all the other work, nothing is clear but an impression.

The Dell Gallery at the Queensland College of Art is open from Wednesday to Sunday each week. On weekdays it opens from 11am-4pm, and on weekends from 12 midday till 4pm. This Google Map shows you where to go: the gallery is about two minutes walk from Southbank train station or about five minutes walk from the Southbank bus station:

Brisbane Blog

Welcome to the Brisbane Blog. If you're on holiday in Brisbane, or if you live here and you've got some free time on your hands, you might be wondering about what things there are to do.

The Brisbane Blog lets you know about free, cheap, fun or exciting things going on in Brisbane: meetups, roller derby, burlesque, music, cult movies, local artists, anti-censorship protests, plays, and film festivals, just for a start. I especially like to promote Creative Commons in Brisbane.

My photos on Flickr

Photos from the Brisbanites group on Flickr

Creative Commons Licence

All material THAT I HAVE CREATED on this blog is available for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence, meaning that you can use it and/or alter it for any reason, including commercial purposes, as long as you attribute it by including a link to http://brisbaneposts.blogspot.com .

ALSO REMEMBER that just because I took a photo of a person and released it under Creative Commons, that doesn't mean you have their permission to use their image for commercial purposes. If I can put you in touch with that person to discuss your signing a model's release, then I will.

Please note that I do NOT own the copyright in most of the photos and videos on this site, so CHECK before you use them.